To the editor:
In June 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the great civil rights leader, wrote a letter to eight white clergymen explaining why he was in Birmingham, Ala., fighting racial discrimination. Dr. King wrote this letter from his jail cell, thus it has been famously known as the “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
In the letter Dr. King talked about just and unjust laws. “A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law . . . an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.”
Since 1973, almost 55 million surgical abortions have taken place in this country because seven unelected men serving for life decided they were above God’s eternal law. Of course, I am speaking of the seven men on the nine-member body of the United States Supreme Court who voted to strike down the abortion laws in all 50 states with its 1973 decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton.
These rulings legalized abortion-on-demand for the entire nine months of pregnancy. Imagine the death toll of 9/11 every day for almost 40 years, and you can get some sense of the enormity of these two horrific Supreme Court decisions. What could be more unjust?
Our current president has done everything within his executive powers to protect and expand this right. In his first week in office he rescinded the Mexico City Doctrine, which had prevented federal tax dollars from going to international organizations that promote or support abortion.
In March of 2009, the president lifted the ban on federally funded human embryonic stem cell research that results in the death of the embryo.
He also has lifted conscience protections for health care workers that don’t want to participate in abortion related services. Both ObamaCare and his HHS mandate that requires religious institutions to pay for health care that includes sterilization, contraception, and abortion-inducing drugs will also expand the access to abortion through insurance exchanges.
We, as taxpayers, will have to fund it either directly or indirectly. Many of these religious institutions are organizations that “feed the poor, shelter the homeless, care for widows and orphans, clothe the naked, give drink to the thirsty, and visit those in prisons” (Matthew 25).
Blessed Mother Teresa once said, “The greatest destroyer of peace was abortion, because if a mother can kill her own child, what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me?”
President Obama embraces a woman’s right to kill her unborn child while Governor Romney would work to seek protection for the most innocent and defenseless human being on this planet. The president embraces the deadly mission of Planned Parenthood, while Romney would defund the nation’s largest abortion provider.
Yes, the ailing economy, the high unemployment rate, affordable health care, education, good paying jobs, collective bargaining rights, housing, and numerous other issues facing this country are all important.
However, unless we get rid of the great scourge and intrinsic evil of abortion from the legal protection of our government, this nation will continue its moral and spiritual decline.
May we take time to read Holy Scripture, seek guidance from the Holy Spirit, and than perform our civic duty by voting on Tuesday, Nov. 6.
Patrick Hardyman, Blanchardville